Entries Tagged 'Health & Fitness' ↓

Add this thought to the issues facing the over 50 LGBT population: Many do not feel comfortable coming out to their doctors or health care providers. Of those who do, discrimination is often the result.

A study by the McGill School of Social Work in Montreal, Canada on health care and treatment for lesbian and gay seniors living in Montreal, Vancouver and Halifax, found that many seniors would not come out to their doctors unless asked directly and that others reported mistreatment if their healthcare providers even suspected their sexual orientation.

One Vancouver senior who was quoted in the study said that she was ignored when she asked for help after one nurse had identified her as a lesbian from a newspaper article.

�From then on, I couldn’t get anyone to help me out of bed,” the woman told researchers.

In another shocking example, a gay senior citizen told researchers that he had a home care worker who, when he found out the man was gay, offered to help “save me from this blasphemous…thing.”

Researchers say that seniors are especially prone to mistreatment because they�re less likely to feel empowered enough to speak up for themselves, due to long-standing generational and societal fears and that when you mix people who have prejudice with people who have vulnerabilities, you often get abuse.

Not coming out to medical professionals is not limited to the elderly. A recent GayHealth.com survey says that more than 40 percent �rarely� or �never� even discuss their sexuality with their doctors. Another GayHealth.com survey reports that one-third had not �come out� to their healthcare provider at all.

But since seniors very often have acute health care needs, to not feel comfortable sharing aspects of their lives which may have an impact on their physical or mental state could have profound negative ramifications.

Changing how the medical profession, home health care providers and nursing homes treat lesbian and gay seniors will require a concerted effort of education and awareness by those who are young and energetic enough to take up the cause. Like other issues, it may reap benefits now and in the future.

Despite all of the reasons why black gay men are beaten down, beaten up, discriminated against and blamed for the spread of HIV among African Americans, the main perpetrator is, in fact, black gay men ourselves. That�s the opinion of AIDS advocate and journalist Keith Green. It’s time for the black gay community to stop blaming everyone else for its plight, he says, and to start standing up for itself.

A group of black, gay community leaders, businessmen and activists joined together in the Windy City to publicly launch the Chicago Black Gay Men’s Caucus, one of a small but slowly growing series of efforts among black, gay men in the United States to mobilize in the fight against HIV. The group’s official launch included an unveiling of its first HIV prevention effort, a music video and public service announcement encouraging men to learn their HIV status.

Michelle Williams of Destiny�s Child talks about playing an HIV-positive character on UPN�s Half & Half.

African-American HIV/AIDS Resource Center at The Body

Sometimes things just fall into your lap.

I opened an email this morning from the Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health, in Lenox, Massachusetts. Back in 1997, a good friend noticed that I seemed to be just kind of sleepwalking through life, not motivated to go after anything and not accomplishing anything significant either. She gave me a gift of a weekend retreat there that really changed my life and forced me to confront some things I had long been avoiding. Now, I still have issues, but at least I�m more aware and open to working on them.

But this email contained a very insightful article on love and relationships. It is completely in synch with ideas that had been roaming around in my mind. With St. Valentine�s Day right around the corner, I thought it might benefit a lot of folks to read this, regardless of your relationship status.

The Yoga of Relationships

by Kate and Joel Feldman

Whether we�re young, old, or somewhere in between, loving relationships take center stage in the theater of our lives. Ultimately, money, career, or achievements matter little compared to the love we invite into our lives and let unfold over time. We all yearn to have love in our lives and enjoy the magic, pleasures, and growth of loving another person. And it�s not just in our minds: Studies show that people in satisfying long-term relationships have stronger immune systems and are better able to tackle life�s ups and downs.

Yet, the path to relational oneness seems strewn with land mines. The initial stages of love can be so effortless, overpowering, and magical, we cannot imagine it will ever come to an end. But no matter how deep and intense the love, all relationships�whether they are romantic, family, or friendship relations�sooner or later face the same reality. As the newness wanes, the day-to-day realities of coexisting together become increasingly difficult to ignore. And this, inevitably, is where the real work begins.

Dealing with Differences

We all feel that our relationship issues are unique, but in reality we face remarkably similar challenges. They tend to center around disagreements about money, kids, sex, housework, in-laws, or leisure time. Couples who stay together happily for the long haul don�t disagree about these issues any less than couples who split up. The difference is in how they handle their differences and how they use skills to build long-term happiness and satisfaction. Many couples avoid conflict because they are afraid it will lead to divorce, but, paradoxically, the number one predictor of divorce is the habitual avoidance of conflict. Successful couples understand that conflict is natural and learn to build mutual trust, which enables them to work through disagreements.

Many of the couples we work with complain, �If this is true love, why do we have to work so hard at it?� This is kind of like saying, �Why do I have to work so hard at mastering asanas or pranayama? Can�t I just sit on my yoga mat every morning?�

What would happen if we did not dedicate time, attention, and effort to our yoga practice? Nothing. Relationships are no different. In the same way that yoga requires knowledge and skills for the mastery of practice, relationships require relational skills in order for them to grow and unfold over time.

Developing Skills

Successful partnerships are those in which both people care as much about the world of the other as they do about their own. This means working with your own individual self-reflection and growth and getting to a point where you can be a whole, separate person while simultaneously being deeply connected to those you love. It means learning and using relational skills that you intentionally build into your daily interactions: taking time to listen to and learn about who your partner is; learning how to make agreements; learning how to set boundaries; learning how to use skillful language when you are speaking; and being able to identify your feelings and speak them without losing your temper or perspective. And it means consciously caring for and cultivating your relationship (i.e., creating rituals, celebrations, and traditions that you and your partner share together).

Relationships ask us to live mindfully and to practice steadfastness, humility, truthfulness, contentment, and nonviolence (i.e., to never hurt anyone in word or deed). If you are familiar with the philosophy of yoga, you will recognize these as very similar to the yamas and niyamas, the ancient ethical prescriptions said to govern human growth and spiritual unfoldment.

The Goal Is Union

When we learn to treat others with relational skillfulness, we are practicing yoga. The ultimate goal of yoga is union�with the divine essence in ourselves and in the world around us. Like a wave in the great ocean of existence, other human beings have the capacity to melt our sense of separateness so that we experience oneness with everything and everyone. This is the true essence of yoga. Learning to see the divine essence in another human being, even when our human reactions, idiosyncrasies, and differences are staring us hard in the face, is the practice of the yoga of relationships. Relationship awareness and practices will gift you with the deepest experience of loving�connecting with another person at the soul level.

We have seen over and over again that when two people want to love and be loved, and when they are willing to grow and change, something mighty emerges. Both individuals grow and become more of who they uniquely are. The partnership provides support, comfort, intimacy, teamwork, and abundance. By developing the yoga of relationships, we can contribute our share to create greater harmony in our families, communities, and nations, and in our global family.

Nourishing Your Relationship

Couples who regularly nourish and feed their relationship as if it were a living being, create more aliveness and energy between them and find themselves more satisfied in their life together over the long term. Here are some specific suggestions for how to nourish your relationships, romantic or otherwise:

Quality time. Create regular, scheduled time for connection, dialogue, fun, intimacy, or even working through conflicts.

Intentional fun and pleasure. Studies show that couples that have five times more pleasure than pain (or comfort versus discomfort) in their everyday interactions feel deeply fulfilled in their relationship.

Appreciation, gratitude, and acknowledgment. Find ways to express these sentiments daily to your partner. Look for the good stuff. It�s always there.

Rituals of attunement, giving, and receiving. Find out what says �I love you� to your partner. Create acts of loving for at least one separation or reunion time during the day.

Shared sexual/sensual/romantic expression. Your relationship needs and wants physical and emotional intimacy. Discover mutually pleasurable ways of nourishing your senses, bodies, and hearts. If this is difficult, find ways to ease into it, beginning with dialogue. Get some help if you need it.

Celebration of life passages. Birthdays, anniversaries, and life-cycle changes are wonderful times to create �out of the box� celebrations. Your relationship deserves to be acknowledged. Make up your own form of celebration or use tried-and-true formats from your cultural and family traditions.

Values clarification, visioning, and goal setting. Set aside time every year to step back and look at your life and relationship. Think about what you want, where you want to go, and what�s important to you. Review where you are and how you got there. Set some future goals based on your shared vision. Write them down and post them for inspiration and guidance.

Joel and Kate Feldman were founding members of Kripalu and lived and served in the Kripalu community for 25 years. Now living in Durango, Colorado, they are therapists and workshop presenters specializing in intimate relationships. They can be reached through their website.

On the heels of World AIDS Day this December 1, here�s information on another AIDS awareness effort.

February 7th is recognized annually as the National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (NBHAAD) - a nation-wide community mobilization initiative that leads to capacity building to increase awareness, participation, and support for HIV prevention among African Americans.

The goal of NBHAAD is to motivate Black Americans at risk for HIV to get educated and tested, and to get HIV/AIDS stakeholders involved in prevention education programs, HIV testing, press conferences, community forums and other activities to raise awareness, participation and support for HIV prevention among Black Americans.

Since 2001, federal, state, and local governmental agencies, community-based organizations, AIDS service organizations, public and private partners in prevention, treatment and care, as well as partners in the business, entertainment, and faith communities have all joined together in support of National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day.

In other AIDS news, two major U.S. cities have reported a recent jump in the number of false-positive results from the OraQuick oral HIV test. Although the rapid oral test is usually 99 percent accurate, public health officials from San Francisco and New York City both say that, lately, the accuracy rate has been quite a bit lower. In response to these reports, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is recommending that all positive results from a rapid oral test be immediately confirmed with a rapid blood test, which has had no reported accuracy problems. There have been no complaints of false-negative test results from the oral test.

Two years ago, I was walking down the street and caught my own reflection in a store window. I yelled, �Hey, I know those guys!�

I was what they used to call �husky� although the less tactful simply said fat. Riding a desk all day and snacking religiously on junk food, then eating sumptuous homemade meals nightly had added girth to my mid-section. Mine was not a six-pack, more like a keg.

I saw the error of my ways and got me to a gym where I have diligently firmed up and slimmed down. My weight is more than I�d like but that may now be due to bone density rather than fat cells, and I have more energy, endurance, flexibility and strength. That burst of speed needed to catch the bus is no biggie now. I still don�t have washboard abs (and never will, thank you) but between you and me, I have great legs.

I share all this to segue to a recent Canadian study that affirms what we already know: proper diet and exercise reduces the risk of heart disease in men. More than 19,000 men between the ages of 20 and 79 were studied from 1979 to 1995 with regard to their cholesterol levels. Men who were physically active had a 50 percent reduction in risk of dying from cardiovascular disease regardless of their cholesterol level.

Now knowing that exercise will make you healthier and actually going out and doing it are often two different things. Many of us can find every excuse to not do some form of physical activity. Obesity is a growing national health problem. We can blame elected officials for their lack of leadership on this issue but the real impetus for change must begin with each and every one of us.

Speaking of physical activity, the U.S. Open has gotten underway here in New York. Serena Williams defeated Yung-Jan Chan in an opening round match, 6-1, 6-3 to advance. In men�s play, 18-year-old up and comer Scoville Jenkins turned in an exciting performance to defeat George Bastl of Switzerland 7-6 (4), 6-0, 6-7 (1), 4-6, 7-6 (5). But on a down note, in Juniors play, Number 1 ranked Donald Young lost his match to Italian qualifier Giorgio Galimberti in straight sets 7-6, 6-1, 6-2.

Finally, in what came as no great surprise to serious football fans, Maurice Clarett got his walking papers from the Denver Broncos. Clarett, who would be entering his senior year at Ohio State had he not gotten a swollen head and tried to go pro early, never impressed coaches and also had a slow recovery from a groin injury. After he clears waivers he�ll be a free agent, able to sign with any other team that�s interested, if there are any other teams.

Moral of this story: Stay in school and get your degree. A pro sports career is an iffy proposition at best, but an education lasts a lifetime.